{"id":1762,"date":"2021-03-11T08:45:25","date_gmt":"2021-03-11T08:45:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-uk.mindquest.io\/?p=1762"},"modified":"2021-08-31T10:14:45","modified_gmt":"2021-08-31T09:14:45","slug":"edna-garden-chapter-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp-uk.mindquest.io\/?p=1762","title":{"rendered":"Edna’s Garden – Chapter 2"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Edna’s Garden: An 8-year-old girl with a passion for nature will turn the world upside down with her data experiments <\/em><\/h2>\n

Edna’s Garden, a story by Miquel Morales<\/a>. <\/em> <\/p>\n

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Jumping in just now? Check out all previous chapters<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n

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Edna’s Garden – Chapter 2<\/h2>\n

The\u00a0lift\u00a0swooshed\u00a0up the Manhattan building\u00a0where Edna had been living for\u00a0the eight years of\u00a0her life. The\u00a0elevator shaft looked\u00a0much\u00a0like a\u00a0tree of\u00a0glass\u00a0growing along the exterior of the building, with a central vertical trunk and smaller shafts branching out to the sides\u00a0connecting to each apartment. Almost all new elevators were built\u00a0like this\u00a0nowadays\u00a0—\u00a0historical architecture was one of the few last\u00a0bastions against urban overdevelopment in a New York that simply had run out of place after the 2040s\u00a0economic boom.\u00a0Edna looked at the crowded city skyline\u00a0with tired eyes.\u00a0Delivery drones\u00a0crossed the space in between buildings,\u00a0avoiding each other\u00a0by just a few millimetres.\u00a0<\/em>This place\u00a0<\/em>definitely need<\/em>s<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>more green<\/em>.\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s hope we can sneak you through the service door and get you cleaned up without your parents seeing us, young lady,\u201d said\u00a0Peter with a long sigh.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy father, Peter.\u00a0She<\/em>\u00a0is not my mom. Plus, I don\u2019t care what\u00a0happens with her stupid dinner.\u201d\u00a0Her stepmother was throwing a\u00a0party this evening to showcase her horrible paintings. She had convinced Dad to invite a\u00a0renowned\u00a0art critic he had once met at a\u00a0corporate\u00a0event.\u00a0Classic\u00a0Bianca, to use others\u2019 influence for her petty little projects\u00a0of self-aggrandising.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou might not, but your father surely does. He\u2019s got enough on his plate as it is with\u00a0work\u00a0to be mediating between the two of you.\u00a0Plus, we are more than an hour late.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The elevator door opened with a\u00a0beep and Edna and Peter found themselves\u00a0in the storage room behind the kitchen. Animated chatting and\u00a0clinking glasses could be heard\u00a0coming from the living room at the opposite side of the building floor the apartment fully occupied.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cQuick, let\u2019s get you cleaned up and changed into more appropriate garments,\u201d said Peter while pulling her towards one of the many bathrooms. A voice startled them right as he was opening the door for Edna to go in.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPlaying with dirt again,\u00a0huh,\u00a0Ed?\u201d\u00a0Her\u00a0older\u00a0sister\u00a0was standing\u00a0in the hallway with her arms crossed. Edna and her\u00a0sister generally liked each other, but puberty was taking a toll on the way her sister treated her. They no longer shared\u00a0the afternoons after school exploring alien worlds in virtual reality or fantasising about moving to\u00a0a small village in\u00a0the Canadian mountains where bird sounds replaced car horns. They still, however, agreed on the fact that Bianca Salazar had been a terrible addition to the family\u00a0and that she had to go. At least on that, they stuck together.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPeter, could you please help her with those shoes full of mud? I\u2019ll go get her clean clothes.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The party was,\u00a0as per usual, a\u00a0bit too much to say the least.\u00a0Edna was trying to find a\u00a0quiet corner of the living room in which\u00a0she could\u00a0remain unnoticed and wait for the\u00a0whole thing to be over. Her sister would be of no help here \u2013 she was too busy with the friends\u00a0she had invited over, one of whom, Edna thought,\u00a0it was\u00a0pretty obvious\u00a0she liked. Edna could have invited\u00a0Jahmil,\u00a0her school buddy\u00a0and a fellow admirer of the wonders of the natural world. But she had decided to spare him the pain.<\/p>\n

One thing was to have him sit through one of her\u00a0long-winded speeches in between classes, the other one was to have him join a\u00a0party of NY socialites whose\u00a0level of\u00a0disregard\u00a0for\u00a0all things fun was only comparable to\u00a0how easy it seemed for them to ignore the fact that they were surrounded by\u00a0the\u00a0grotesque\u00a0paintings\u00a0of an egomaniac they didn\u2019t even like.\u00a0Edna couldn\u2019t wait for the whole thing to be over so that she could go back to her computer model of the pond and\u00a0implement the updates she had come up with that day during\u00a0business class.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

At least the catering was good. Little\u00a0pastries and cold canap\u00e9s\u00a0from Martinelli\u2019s on 5th, her favourite caf\u00e9 in town.\u00a0Peter was busy carrying trays full of them up and down the room\u00a0with his usual mix of warmth and sophistication.\u00a0It almost pained her to think it had been Bianca who proposed getting\u00a0the\u00a0food\u00a0for the showcasing\u00a0from\u00a0Martinelli\u2019s.\u00a0She had tried to sell it as a gesture to Edna and her sister, but Edna wasn\u2019t buying it. Too\u00a0nice\u00a0of\u00a0a gesture for Bianca Salazar.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you must be Edna,\u201d a man\u2019s voice said from behind. A bespectacled man wearing a flat cap and a\u00a0shinny\u00a0blazer was filling his plate with\u00a0tiny\u00a0savoury\u00a0croissants and way too many olives.\u00a0Definitely the\u00a0art critic.\u00a0A blue glow on the surface of his glasses\u00a0informed\u00a0Edna\u00a0that\u00a0he\u00a0was looking something up\u00a0in his augmented\u00a0reality\u00a0display \u2013 a kind of multitasking very popular in those days.\u00a0\u201cYour father has told me a lot about you, you know? Too bad he wasn\u2019t able to make it today.\u201d\u00a0Unsurprisingly, her father had got caught up with one of his board meetings. Something about an activist investor.\u00a0Probably nothing to do with the kind of activists that\u00a0fight to\u00a0save\u00a0entire Amazonian ecosystems\u00a0and that Edna admired\u00a0so\u00a0much.\u00a0\u201cSo, what do you think of the paintings?\u201d\u00a0He pointed at the nearest one with a sausage-stuffed croissant.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Edna hesitated. \u201cEh, you know…\u00a0the colour is kind of nice?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cRelax,\u201d\u00a0he said with a chuckle. \u201cI\u2019m only here as a favour to your dad. Even he knows it\u2019s painful to look at these things.\u00a0But it\u2019s important for Bianca. And\u00a0so,\u00a0it is to him. You know, your dad\u2019s a good man. Nothing to do with the\u00a0suits you tend to meet at\u00a0these corporate things.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, he\u2019s cool,\u201d she said quietly, wishing her father had as much time to spend with her as he apparently had\u00a0to go around making friends with artistic types.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Take that one, for example,\u201d he said pointing at a big square painting across the room. It was an\u00a0undecipherable\u00a0pastiche of colours and\u00a0shapes. \u201cWhat do you think\u00a0that actually is?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Edna smiled.\u00a0All things\u00a0considered;\u00a0she was starting to like the man.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\"Sign<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u201cHmmm. An eggplant fighting a chihuahua? No! Wait.\u00a0Actually,\u00a0I\u00a0think it\u00a0is a self-portrait of Bianca. See? You can recognise her silly hat and\u00a0witch-like face.\u00a0And that mouth that…\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Too late. Edna\u00a0felt the presence of Bianca, who had approached the couple in the hopes of\u00a0squeezing some feedback out of the art critic.\u00a0Despite her apparently perfect smile,\u00a0Edna\u00a0could tell in her eyes that she had\u00a0perfectly\u00a0heard what\u00a0she\u00a0had just said. The rest, as they say, is history.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Back in her bedroom, Edna finished\u00a0changing her clothes and sat at her desk. It was kind of comforting to be\u00a0spared the rest of the evening. She wasn\u2019t looking forward to\u00a0the\u00a0\u201chonest\u00a0chat\u201d his dad would have with her when he got home later that day. Undoubtedly, Bianca would have told him how Edna had ruined her only chance at becoming a self-sufficient artist. As if she could have sold\u00a0a single one\u00a0of those paintings anyway. But at least she could go back to what mattered: the pond model.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

She started by inputting the new data and variables she had collected at the park that day and then went on to\u00a0fix the code with the new approach she had come up with.\u00a0It took her a while to put it all together, but her face was glowing with excitement when she was done. She hit the compile button. A message appeared: insufficient power. Darn it. There was only\u00a0one thing left to do. After some tweaking, she managed to connect her computing station to the apartments main power network.\u00a0According to Tim345 on Reddit, it was not something a certified electrician would advise anyone to do. But what the heck.\u00a0Not that anyone in that house put too much care on her anyway.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Edna pressed the compile button again.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The power went out\u00a0with a low hum.\u00a0In the absolute darkness of her room, Edna could hear\u00a0Bianca\u2019s howl\u00a0piercing\u00a0through the walls.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEdna!!!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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To be continued…<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Read the next chapter of Edna’s Garden: Edna\u2019s Garden \u2013 Chapter 3<\/a><\/p>\n

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Need tips on how to find a job in IT? Check out our\u00a0IT job hunting guide.<\/a> <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Enter Edna’s Garden Chapter 2. How an 8-year-old girl with a passion for nature turns the world upside down with her data experiments. By Horizon 2050.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":1539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[485,484,187,75,274],"class_list":["post-1762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horizon-2050","tag-edna","tag-h-2050","tag-horizon-2050","tag-sci-fi","tag-short-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-uk.mindquest.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-uk.mindquest.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-uk.mindquest.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-uk.mindquest.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-uk.mindquest.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1762"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/wp-uk.mindquest.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3947,"href":"https:\/\/wp-uk.mindquest.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1762\/revisions\/3947"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-uk.mindquest.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-uk.mindquest.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-uk.mindquest.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-uk.mindquest.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}